


Laugh with Me, Buddy

by ThrillingDetectiveTales



Category: iZombie (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:07:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21748768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThrillingDetectiveTales/pseuds/ThrillingDetectiveTales
Summary: “Remind we why we can’t be on lawyer brains for this?” Liv asked. It came out slightly muffled, considering she still had half her face pressed against a flat surface. “Or politician brains? Ambassador brains, debutante brains, any brains but our own?”“Ethical integrity,” Major supplied, and shrugged at the petulant frown Liv flashed in response. “Hey, it wasn’tmyidea. I was all about ceding the moral high ground on this one, but Mayor Charles and our collective counsel were pretty insistent we not do anything to ‘preemptively alienate our human audience.’” He put the last part in finger quotes.
Relationships: Ravi Chakrabarti/Peyton Charles, implied Major Lilywhite/Liv Moore
Comments: 8
Kudos: 27
Collections: Canon Divergent AUs, Yuletide 2019





	Laugh with Me, Buddy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rivkat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rivkat/gifts).



> So, this is my first ever Yuletide and I was tremendously excited to get the chance to try my hand at some characters that have been on my “to write” list for years. This fic picks up eight months or so after the S4 finale and completely ignores the contents of S5.
> 
> To my recipient: Thank you so much for participating in Yuletide this year! This little fic was incredibly fun to write, and with any luck it will be equally fun to read. I hope it’s at least a little of what you were wishing for when you sent your prompt~
> 
> Big ups to **[name redacted until reveals]** for beta-reading and back-patting. Any remaining errors are mine.
> 
> Title from the Willie Nelson song, [Buddy.](https://youtu.be/IDfLETGv28g)
> 
> Enjoy!

Liv slumped forward over the conference table as soon as the video feed had disconnected, heaving a sigh so heavy it fogged the dark-wood laminate.

“Oh, come on,” Major said from the seat to her right. Liv turned her head just far enough to see him rocking absently back and forth in his chair. He was looking sharp in a dove-gray suit rather than his customary Fillmore-Graves body armor, with his hands folded in his lap and a smirk pulling a dimple into his cheek. “It wasn’t that bad.”

“Certainly,” Ravi agreed from Major’s other side. He leaned forward so that his elbow was on the table, cheek resting against his knuckles. “It was only slightly worse than I imagine being strung up on the rack might be.”

“Remind we why we can’t be on lawyer brains for this?” Liv asked. It came out slightly muffled, considering she still had half her face pressed against a flat surface. “Or politician brains? Ambassador brains, debutante brains, any brains but our own?”

“Ethical integrity,” Major supplied, and shrugged at the petulant frown Liv flashed in response. “Hey, it wasn’t _my_ idea. I was all about ceding the moral high ground on this one, but Mayor Charles and our collective counsel were pretty insistent we not do anything to ‘preemptively alienate our human audience.’” He put the last part in finger quotes.

“Ugh,” Liv sighed, pushing herself up. They had drawn the line at tanning and dyeing, thank God, agreeing that it was best all zombie representatives appear in their natural state of pallid waifishness—even if Major looked kind of goofy rocking the aesthetic on his 6”2 frame. “I know. And I know they’re right, I just think it might make it easier to defend my humanity, and yours,” she gestured to Major and then to the conference room around them, “and _everyone else’s,_ if I didn’t have to be me while I was doing it, y’know?”

“Yeah.” Major reached up to scrub at his jaw. “I know.” He stared into the middle distance for a long second, good mood fading, and then perked back up and rapped his knuckles on the table. “Well,” he drawled, rising to his feet and looking back and forth between Ravi and Liv, “if you two don’t have any lunch plans, I know a place nearby that does a truly gourmet tube of brain sludge.”

“Ooh.” Liv screwed her face up in thought and clicked her teeth. “That wouldn’t happen to be the deeply uninspiring lobby cafeteria of your multi-million dollar corporation, would it?”

“We have a whole three and a half stars on Yelp.” Major raised his eyebrows enticingly. “One reviewer went so far as to call it ‘nearly adequate.’”

Ravi batted his eyelashes and grinned soppily, “You always take us to the nicest places.”

Liv huffed a laugh and ducked her head. “Only a moron would turn down that solidly mediocre rating,” she agreed.

They wound up taking their lunch with them for a turn around the nearby park, because the weather was nice and there were a variety of food carts to be found stationed throughout. Unambitious imaginary Yelp ratings notwithstanding, the cafeteria catered to a strictly zombie clientele—to which Ravi belonged only during his ‘monthlies,’ which weren’t due for another week or so, yet—and all three of them were in need of sustenance after a stressful morning spent testifying in front of the United States Supreme Court.

The _‘Personhood Trials,’_ as they’d been dubbed by the popular media, were an ongoing discussion as to the legal classification of zombies as a whole. Some litigants were hoping to see zombieism classified as an epidemic in the interest of fast-tracking a functional cure—Ravi, Peyton, and Liv, if you caught her on the right brains—while others simply wanted to maintain their legal rights as individuals—Major and most zombies you might pass on the street—while still more sought to see zombies stripped of all legal protections and offered up for the proverbial hunting season—pretty much everyone else in the continental United States and the majority of its minor outlying islands. Liv, Major, and Ravi had been neck-deep in video interviews and recurring testimonials since the first case hit. They weren’t the only ones doing it, of course. Clive had acted as a character witness early on, and would probably end up testifying again at some point given his proximity to the whole business, and Peyton was still in DC, acting as a human liaison and putting her considerable courtroom skills to good use, but the three of them were called on routinely by both the defense and the prosecution.

It made sense, given that they were the zombie leader of a benevolent human trafficking collective, the world’s foremost expert on zombie physiology, and the head of the paramilitary zombie corporation responsible for the logistics of looking after Seattle’s recently unveiled zombie population, respectively. It just didn’t leave any of them a lot of time to hang out, between court appearances and day jobs, so the unexpected walking lunch was a pleasant surprise. Plus, it was good publicity for humans and zombies to be seen interacting socially, as Peyton was always reminding them when she called with an update on the court’s progress.

“Helps to allay suspicion, anyway, eating out in the open,” Ravi said, taking a gratuitous bite out of the fully loaded hotdog he was balancing on a little paper boat. “The whole world is still dying to know the identity of Patient X. Hoping to extrapolate the vaccine from their identity, I presume, which is hilarious considering the bastards on Capitol Hill can’t even make an unequivocal decision about whether zombies count as people or not despite the irrefutable proof that all you lot have regular heartbeats.” 

“Yeah,” Major snorted. “Heartbeats that clock in at a whopping six beats per minute.”

“Still a heartbeat!” Ravi insisted, in the slightly hysterical tone of a man who had repeated that exact same phrase ad infinitum in recent months and was beginning to worry he’d been speaking an indecipherable language the whole time. He took a breath, licked his fingers, and pointed at Major, “Anyway, smart money is currently suggesting that you and I are in cahoots on the whole affair in the grand tradition of the esteemed Doctor Frankenstein and his beloved monster, given your sordid on-again, off-again relationship with the Z-virus and that thing where we live together in domestic bliss.”

“You shack up with a hot British doctor and date an internet psycho who monetizes your personal history _one time,”_ Major sighed, shaking his head with a smirk.

“For real, though,” Liv frowned. “Nobody’s circling too close, are they?”

Ravi shook his head and Liv helped herself to another relieved mouthful of moussey, inoffensive brain slurry. They were a long way from refining the recipe into something truly mouthwatering, but it was palatable enough that Liv thought she could almost taste the mango-lychee in it this time.

“Our patient remains safely anonymous,” Ravi confirmed. A sizable splotch of ketchup, mustard, and relish squelched forward out of the bun to land with a solid plop on the lapel of his suit jacket, [an almost eye-searingly bright turquoise number he had paired with matching trousers and a cornflower blue shirt.](https://66.media.tumblr.com/4806b2c5fe95ccb6bd8376b3bf146942/tumblr_o2ezxcH95j1s2q2y6o1_540.jpg) How the whole ensemble managed to work quite so well was undoubtedly a mystery for the ages. “Oh, balls! I just bought this thing.” He dabbed at it with a crumpled napkin and wrinkled his nose. _“And_ I have another conference call this afternoon.” He turned a beseeching gaze on his compatriots, arms spread wide. “Is it bad?”

“I don’t know,” Liv said, leaning in to inspect the residual stain. She brushed at it with the pads of her fingers. “I think you could probably get by with a creatively arranged neckerchief.” She plucked at Ravi’s lapel. “Maybe some kind of ascot?”

Ravi glared at her and looked up to catch Major’s eye over her shoulder. Liv turned to look, too.

Major shrugged. “Tasteful brooch?”

“Hilarious,” Ravi said. “Thank you both for the deeply unhelpful color commentary.” 

Major dipped into a shallow bow and Liv doffed an imaginary cap.

Ravi rolled his eyes, gave the stain another few ineffectual swipes, and sighed. “Ugh. Fantastic. Now I’m going to have to go home and change.”

“Who are you meeting with, anyway?” Major asked.

“Oh, you know,” Ravi said, needlessly trick-shotting the remains of his lunch into a nearby trash can, “several private pharmaceutical companies, the United Nations, the World Health Organization, the FDA, and, of course, the CDC.” He wagged his eyebrows. “They always want a piece of me nowadays.”

“It’s so gratifying when an ex comes crawling back,” Major said. He and Ravi bumped fists while Liv swatted Major on the shoulder.

“Hey!” she protested, mouth tilting up one side. “I resemble that remark.”

“Please,” Major scoffed with a grin, slinging an arm around her shoulders. “As if you would ever crawl anywhere for any reason.”

“I do a much better moonwalk,” Liv agreed, reaching up to curl her fingers around Major’s wrist. 

“And a very passable worm,” Ravi added.

“I maintain that that particular skill was strictly the provenance of frat boy brains.”

They walked in companionable silence for awhile, until they’d made it about halfway around the park. Liv chewed at her thumbnail and then reached over to nudge her elbow against Ravi’s.

“Any word from the Mayor?”

“Yeah, man,” Major added over her head. “What’s the hot goss?”

“Wow,” Ravi drawled. Liv poked him in the side.

“Come on!” she grinned while Ravi squawked and ducked a few steps out of reach. “Dish! How is she doing? When is she coming back?”

Ravi clicked his teeth and tucked his hands into his pockets, squinting for a second up at the cloudless sky. “Not until the trials are over, almost certainly. Turns out the U.S. Army isn’t big on allowing free passage into and out of quarantine zones, so if she comes back before the barrier comes down, she’s back for good.”

“Well that’s...good, isn’t it?” Liv asked. She looked to Major, who shrugged, then back to Ravi and continued, “I mean, back for good sounds pretty unequivocally good. It’s got ‘good’ right in there!”

“It _would_ be good,” Ravi agreed, “only you know how Peyton feels about appearing at the trials in the flesh.”

“Ah.” Liv nodded.

“Ah, indeed,” Ravi said. He was quiet for a long moment, watching his feet as they strolled throughout the park. “Anyway, she’s right.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and then flashed them both a smile. “God knows we need every advantage we can get, at this point. There are hundreds, nay thousands of lives on the line, and that’s assuming we _don’t_ inadvertently wind up starting the zombie apocalypse in the process of trying to prevent the very same.” He shrugged. “What’s a few months apart in the face of all that, hm?”

Liv could feel herself melting into dopily affectionate goo as she smiled at him. She slipped out from under Major’s arm and linked elbows with Ravi, leaning her head against his shoulder.

“You’re a good man, Ravi Chakrabarti.”

“Yes, well,” Ravi ducked his head and patted Liv on the arm, “it’s my curse, I’m afraid: handsome, intelligent, charming, with a dreamy exotic accent _and_ a heart of gold beating underneath it all.”

“You truly are the full package,” Major confirmed. “That’s why I locked it down within three hours of meeting you.”

They bumped fists again and Liv tucked a laugh into Ravi’s shoulder. 

“She’ll be back soon,” Liv said, scrubbing her hand fondly up and down Ravi’s arm.

“Soon as the trials are over, anyway,” Ravi sighed. He cupped his hand over Liv’s for a second, giving her fingers a gentle squeeze. She looked up and flashed him a grin and Ravi reflected it back.

“Until then,” Major said, coming up behind them to wrap an arm around each of their shoulders as he nudged his temple against Ravi’s, “looks like you’re stuck with the living dead for company.”

“A fitting punishment,” Ravi said. “I suppose the universe had to maintain balance somehow, considering I won the proverbial lottery in a multitude of other areas.” He licked a finger and smoothed it over one of his eyebrows while Liv and Major snorted.

Liv jabbed a finger pointedly into Ravi’s bicep then gestured between herself and Major, while Ravi mouthed ‘ow’ and rubbed at the tender spot. “You got a couple of winning tickets right here, bud,” she said, and Ravi dipped his chin in a nod.

“Lucky again, I guess.” He let that sit for a second and then tilted his head back and said to Major, “Although, I’m not sure ‘living dead’ is the politically correct term nowadays. We’re trying to sort of rebrand the whole thing, remember?”

“Don’t zombie-splain to me,” Major scoffed.

“I think I’m in a unique position to be allowed to zombie-splain to you, actually.”

“You’re like, half a zombie at best.” Major reached up to flick Ravi’s ear and Ravi jerked his head away so hard he nearly brained Liz, who made an unattractive squawking sound of surprise and leapt back from the spectacle before she became trapped in its gravity.

“That is a) privileged information,” Ravi said, swatting blindly at Major, who was still hanging halfway off his back, “and b) probably bigoted! It feels bigoted, certainly, doesn’t it, Liv? In a sort of wizard racism a la Harry Potter way?”

Liv held both her hands up. “I want no part of this.”

“You say the same thing all the time!” Major slapped a hand back at Ravi, though not with much fervor or accuracy.

“Maybe,” Liv offered in a stage whisper from a safe distance away, watching them squabble like children with her arms folded over her chest, “you should both shut up and quit talking about this in the middle of a public square.”

“Boo!” Major said at the same time that Ravi sneered, “Thanks, _mum.”_

“Fine.” Liv held her hands up again. “Don’t come crying to me when you both get rounded up by some shadowy organization and booted off to a secret underground base to spend the rest of your lives undergoing bizarre, unethical experiments at the hands of some creepy, misguided Jekyll type with clammy hands, severe B.O., and a questionable love of kimchi fried rice.”

“You have _got_ to get over your sophomore lab partner,” Major muttered, while Ravi rolled his eyes.

“Oh, please.” Ravi said, and jerked a thumb at the man over his shoulder. “Major runs the only shadowy organization in Seattle worth its salt, and he’s certainly not going to kidnap me for nefarious purposes.”

“Not _nefarious_ ones,” Major agreed.

“You cheeky little bastard - ”

Liv sighed, rolled her eyes to the heavens, and gave her intervention up as a bad job. She dug her phone out of her purse while Major and Ravi went down to the soft green turf in a tangle of limbs and laughter, careful to get a good angle on the action because Peyton was going to want to see this later.

“Grass stains!” Ravi hollered, so loud that a couple of birds abandoned their roost in a nearby maple. “Really?”

Liv grinned and pressed record.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
